Musk says he’ll reinstate Nick Fuentes X account

Elon Musk announced Thursday that he will reinstate the account of Nick Fuentes, a far-right livestreamer known for espousing white supremacist and anti-Semitic views, on his social media platform X.

In his post, Musk responded to a comment asking for Fuentes to be allowed back on stage, writing, “As long as he doesn’t violate the law, he will come back and he can be destroyed by comments and community notes. Deaf,” he said.

“It’s better to have a rebuttal out in the open than to smolder in the dark,” the billionaire added.

Musk briefly reinstated Fuentes’ account in January 2023 after acquiring the platform then known as Twitter in late 2022. Twitter suspended the 25-year-old Fuentes’ account less than 24 hours after he was allowed back on the platform.

During his brief return to Twitter last year, Fuentes posted a video promoting the presidential campaign of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. Ye and Fuentes attended a dinner with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in December 2022, sparking a backlash against Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Mr. Musk has previously described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” and since taking office he has sought to bring back several controversial figures to the platform, including Mr. Trump and Mr. Ye. However, Ye’s account was suspended again after several anti-Semitic posts.

“I can’t claim to be a champion of free speech, but permanently banning people who haven’t broken any laws is a good idea, even if I disagree with their opinions,” Musk said in another post Thursday. No matter how much we disagree,” he said.

“We’re probably going to lose a lot of advertisers over this, which is sad, but principles are principles,” he continued.

Since taking over the platform in 2022, Musk has struggled to retain advertisers. Several major advertisers pulled back on ad spending last fall after reports emerged that the platform, now known as X, was running ads for mainstream brands next to pro-Nazi and white supremacist content.